In his final regular-season football game for Bunnell High, Marcus Easley had over 300 total yards and was the MVP of the Bulldogs' 2004 Thanksgiving Day victory over Stratford.

A few people took notice, but not many of those were major college football coaches. Most of them didn't even know there was a wide receiver named Marcus Easley at Bunnell.

"Nope," UConn football coach Randy Edsall said. "I'll be honest. I didn't have a clue."

That shouldn't come as a surprise. Almost no one thought Easley would someday be a Division I-A football player, let alone a star.

But that's what the 6-foot-2, 215-pound senior is now. He's one of UConn's primary offensive weapons, having caught 44 passes for 853 yards and eight touchdowns heading into the Jan. 2 Papajohns.com Bowl.

Don't believe anyone who claims they expected Easley to progress to this point. Even he sometimes can't believe it.

"His work ethic has always been off the charts," Bunnell football coach Craig Bruno said this week. "His determination, I was able to see. The rest of it has been a great, great surprise."

Following that win over Stratford and Bunnell's loss to Pomperaug in the Class MM playoffs, it appeared Easley's football career was over. Sacred Heart and a few other Division I-AA schools showed interest in his abilities on the football field, but Easley instead chose to attend UConn and focus on earning a degree in sports management.

"I guess the strong academic standards that UConn has and the type of school that it is were more intriguing than playing football at a smaller school," Easley said.

But Easley wanted both and his hiatus from football only lasted one year. He tried out for the UConn football team.

"Not being highly recruited out of high school, you kind of make a decision like, `Maybe football, maybe I should give it up,'" Easley said. "But not being in the game for a year kind of made me more hungry."

That's when the man who now says that Easley has some serious pro potential realized that a receiver named Marcus Easley actually existed.

"I didn't even know he was here on our campus until the day that he came and said he wanted to try out for the team," Edsall said. "I just thank God he had enough want-to and perseverance to stick through it."

Easley's breakout season almost didn't happen. He toiled in relative obscurity as a walk-on for three seasons with the Huskies, even while he and those close to him felt Easley deserved a chance to contribute more.

"I had been to see him a few times in the previous years and we were all frustrated. Everybody wanted him to get the ball," Bruno said. "I would go to the game and that's really all I was there to see."

What Bruno and Easley's supporters usually saw when UConn's No. 29 was in the game was a running play. The Husky coaches were using Easley where they thought he would be most effective: as a blocker.

"You don't really question the coaches' decisions. They get paid for what they do and they do it very well," Easley said. "Sometimes you don't really understand, though -- `How come I'm not playing?' And I just tried to stay focused and keep going hard, keep doing what I can do."

Easley contemplated leaving the program after the 2008 season. He was on track to graduate and wasn't sure if he'd be more of a factor in 2009. But the fact that a new offensive coordinator was coming on board in Joe Moorhead and the fact that Edsall would soon grant him a scholarship helped sway Easley's decision. He would return.

Edsall playfully admits that the Huskies missed the boat by not playing Easley sooner, though it's perhaps less than funny to Easley.

"Maybe if we could have thrown the ball a little better the two previous years, we would have had maybe a bigger weapon earlier," Edsall said. "He's had a tremendous year."

Easley became UConn's biggest deep threat, catching 44 balls for a 19.4 average and eight touchdowns.

Even after Easley decided to spend a fifth year in Storrs, Edsall publicly called out all of the wide receivers on the roster for their lack of production. The coach promised any and all freshmen who were committed or thinking of committing to UConn would have a chance to contribute right away in 2009.

"It was tough. I'm not going to lie to you," Easley said. "Especially since you've been overlooked and under the radar your whole career. It definitely kept me hungry."

Under the radar might be the title of Easley's autobiography some day. Long before he was something of a late bloomer in college, he was a late bloomer in high school.

"When he was a freshman, he was just a little pipsqueak," longtime Bunnell athletic director David Johnson said. "And then I look around today, every time he comes down to Bunnell to say hi to coach Bruno or whatever, I just can't believe the transformation." Johnson's son, Austin, was on the freshman basketball team at Bunnell with Easley. Like Bruno and Edsall, the AD saw a work ethic in Easley that was unmistakable.

"He's not one of the most naturally gifted athletes. He's certainly a very good athlete and has ability, but he's not in the same framework as say a Mark Harrison," said Johnson, referring to the former Bunnell star who is now a freshman receiver at Rutgers. "Much of what Marcus has achieved obviously is a result of hard work."

Even when Easley's hard work finally started to pay off, with a 79-yard touchdown catch against Pittsburgh Oct. 10, some still didn't know what they were witnessing. The television broadcasters that day at first called Easley Eric Sawicki, a freshman receiver with the Huskies who has yet to play.

Despite being frequently overlooked, Easley's hard work has him on the path toward a career in the NFL. He's considered a mid-round pick at this point by many experts and could progress even higher after scouts get a chance to see him work out again.

When Easley ran the 40-yard dash at UConn's Pro Day last season, he did so in 4.39. That raised the eyebrows of some scouts -- this is kind of a theme for Easley -- who didn't even know his name.

"We told them last year, `There's a guy you have to keep your eye on,' " Edsall said. "Now they've really got their eye on him."

Now that Easley has shown himself to be a deep threat with great hands who isn't afraid to go over the middle and often drags tacklers for an extra 5 or 10 yards following a catch, it's hard to take your eyes off him.

"If we have 1-on-1 with Marcus Easley, I'll take that any day," quarterback Zach Frazer says.

And when NFL teams check into Easley's past, as all do when they get ready to invest in players, they're likely to find a person more impressive than the player he's become.

"A lot of these teams, they don't just look at the person in terms of what they run the 40 in or what their vertical leap is," Johnson said. "I also know they do background checks to check on things like coachability, teachability, character, ethics, morality. He's going to score a 10-plus on all that stuff."

Easley's mother Tiki, along with his grandfather George Easley, have apparently helped mold a remarkable man.

"If you know him the way I know him and know his family, it's inevitable that he's going to be successful," Bruno said. "We hope he gets an opportunity and in the NFL, but whatever opportunity he gets, it's inevitable."